The controversial, much fought-over deal to allow a private firm to manage and operate U.S. 36 between Boulder and Denver is a done deal.

The Colorado Department of Transportation announced Wednesday that it closed on its contract with Plenary Roads Denver, a multinational consortium of infrastructure-building companies, to widen and build toll lanes on a portion of the Boulder Turnpike and provide maintenance and snow removal services for the entire highway for the next 50 years.

Plenary also will provide maintenance on the stretch of Interstate 25 between U.S. 36 and downtown Denver until 2063. In exchange, the consortium will collect tolls in two new managed lanes being built in each direction of U.S. 36 and pay back bondholders with the revenues.

The deal's finalization came after weeks of tense public meetings and protestations from hundreds denouncing the contract with Plenary, which was characterized by detractors as a giveaway of a public road to the private sector.

CDOT countered that the public-private partnership, which keeps the road under state ownership, is one of the only ways left to get major road projects completed in an era of tight budgets and stagnant gas taxes.

Without a private sector partner to shoulder some of the risk and cost burden of the $425 million project, the agency said, improvements to the west end of U.S. 36 probably wouldn't have happened for another 20 years.

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"We still need to have a broader conversation on how transportation is paid for in Colorado and the methods to deliver those types of projects," CDOT spokeswoman Amy Ford said Wednesday.

Tolls, HOV3 prompted objections

But the way details of the contract with Plenary came to light — or didn't — in the last couple of months irked many.

Contract opponents gathered more than 20,000 signatures in an online campaign that accused CDOT, through its High-Performance Transportation Enterprise financing arm, of essentially privatizing the 62-year-old highway and then working out the details of that effort in secret.

Last month, more than a dozen state lawmakers — led by Sen. Matt Jones, D-Louisville — insisted they be allowed time to review the 600-page contract before it was approved. CDOT denied the lawmakers' request, but did, under fire, release a redacted version of the full contract for public viewing earlier this month.

Jones said Wednesday that there wasn't nearly enough time to go over such a complex deal and that the "process needs to be transparent." He said he plans to introduce a bill this session that would make disclosure of the details of public-private partnerships a more rigorous and open undertaking.

"For 50 years now, we'll have to abide by this concessionaire agreement," he said.

More specifically, contract opponents raised objections to the fact that, starting in 2017, high-occupancy vehicles traveling in the two new toll/transit lanes — two lanes in each direction of U.S. 36 will remain free — will have to hold three occupants instead of two to qualify as toll-free HOV.

They also raised alarms about a stipulation in the contract that stated that a one-way trip between Boulder and Denver could be tolled as high as $14.

CDOT responded that it is highly unlikely the toll would ever go that high. It said HOV3 and a high cap on tolls had to be included in the contract language in case congestion ever got so bad in the managed lanes that traffic slowed down the progress of Regional Transportation District buses — a traffic control tactic known as congestion pricing.

The agency said a one-way toll on U.S. 36 is more likely to start in the $4 to $6 range, which is comparable to other rates around the metro area.

'We need to be cautious'

Danny Katz, director of Colorado Public Interest Research Group, said his organization is trying to wade through the hundreds of pages of the contract and associated documents to make a thorough assessment of its pros and cons, even if it is a done deal.

He plans to present his findings during a press conference at 11 a.m. Thursday in Superior, at the south end of the 88th Street bridge over U.S. 36.

The devil is in the details, he said, and it's critical to know exactly who's getting what and for how much. Plenary Roads Denver is made up of the Plenary Group, Ames Construction, Granite Construction, HDR, Transfield Services and Goldman Sachs.

"A private company is bringing money to the table to complete this project and we have to give them stuff in return," Katz said. "We need to be cautious and we need to be convinced there aren't better options."

Contract 'thoughtful, innovative'

Randy Harrison, a senior fellow with the University of Colorado at Denver School of Public Affairs who has expertise in public-private partnerships, said the deal between CDOT and Plenary was "thoughtful, innovative and well conceived" — even if public outreach by CDOT about the agreement was botched.

He said the idea of creating managed lanes as a congestion relief mechanism for U.S. 36 began more than a decade ago and involved government officials up and down the corridor. The process also involved the federal government and other state agencies, such as RTD and the Denver Regional Council of Governments.

"This is a tremendously integrated public team under the leadership of CDOT, which owns the asset," Harrison said. "It was the best people working on it. Was it properly vetted? Yes. Now it's up to the public sector to hold the private sector accountable."

Ford said CDOT won't back away from future partnerships like the one forged with Plenary, mostly because it can't afford to.

Already, the High-Performance Transportation Enterprise is looking at possible public-private partnerships to make improvements to I-70 through Denver and C-470 in Douglas County.

"The transportation needs in the state are so great they can't sit and wait to be publicly funded," she said. "We are absolutely continuing to explore them."

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